International Women’s Day: highlighting Salisbury’s female leaders and change makers

SALISBURY, Md. – Women making an impact on Salisbury’s community say International Women’s Day is all about ensuring a seat at the table. “Take up space. Make sure your voice and your opinions and thoughts are heard and aren’t trampled on by other people in the room,” said Salisbury City Administrator Julia Glanz.

Julia Glanz

Julia Glanz is Salisbury’s first ever female City Administrator. When Mayor Jake Day was deployed to Djibouti in 2020 with the Maryland Army National Guard, Glanz was named the city’s Acting Mayor. The designation made her the city’s second female mayor in its 290 year history.

“When I take the time to think about it, it’s crazy. I was really young when I was hired with the city. I was 25, and 27 when I was appointed to this position. That still is kind of wild to me,” said Glanz.

Glanz says for her, International Women’s Day is about reflection, with an eye toward the future. “It’s an opportunity to recognize each other. I think we do a good job of lifting each other up on a day to day basis. But, it’s always nice to slow down and think about it,” she said.

While Glanz says her mother and grandmothers have always inspired her, it’s the women she works alongside every day that keep that inspiration going. “They’re contributing to the community. They’re contributing to the city every single day,” she said. “They’re bringing new ideas to the table, they’re pushing their boundaries, trying to take on more, and that is inspiring to me to do more every day, too.”

Glanz says she hopes women will continue lifting each other up. “We just create a level playing field for everybody to have the same opportunities, to succeed in life, and currently, that’s not the case,” she said.

Michele Ennis

Michele Ennis is the Executive Director of the Tri-County Mediation. She is also the facilitator for the organization’s Lower Shore Vulnerable Populations Task Force. “Great loss and great pain, feelings of rejection, abandonment, and being grossly misunderstood, all together helped motivate me towards giving space,” said Ennis.

That work to achieve justice and inclusion is something driven by values that Ennis says relate to women’s empowerment, as well. “[International Women’s Day] is an invitation for us to really pause and think about our global connectivity and pushing past the way that we examine progress,” she said. “It’s not like one special type of person can do this work. It has to do with a willingness to really show up and suspend one’s judgement, and really support people.”

Ennis says she draws inspiration from her grandmother. “She was a single mom of six kids, and she was a nurse at the hospital when they opened the first coronary care unit. She also did private duty nursing, and worked probably 80 hour work weeks,” she said. “She loved ferociously, and sometimes she was just outright ferocious. But, she took a stand.”

That stand happened years ago, when Ennis’ grandmother was working in a segregated hospital. “A woman she worked with was a nurse, who actually out-degreed my grandmother. The woman was African American. She said ‘Let’s go get something to eat and take a little break.’ Her colleague looked at her and said ‘Miss Madeleine, you know that I can’t do that,'” said Ennis.

Ennis’ grandmother, a white woman, could not eat with her African American colleague because of segregation. “This nurse, as a Black woman, was expected to stand in the back in the kitchen,” said Ennis. “My grandmother came home that day and told her children ‘I might not have a job tomorrow, but I’m going to have my dignity and I’m going to have my soul.’ So, she packed her lunch, and she contacted the press, and did her own sit in. She started eating lunch on the front steps of the hospital, and was one of the leaders to move integration forward.”

Celeste Savage

At HALO Ministry, Executive Director Celeste Savage works every day to make sure that the community’s most vulnerable people have somewhere to turn when they’re in need. “To know where it started from out of the back of the van to where we are today, to all the ladies and women out there, find your passion. Get some people rallying with you,” she said.

15 years later, HALO is still going strong. Savage says what’s kept her going all these years, is lessons learned from her mother, and Mother Teresa. “[My mother] lived a Christian life in front of me that made me want to live that way,” she said. “I think she was a woman of amazing height, although short. It’s her love for people and her willingness to do whatever it takes to bring about change.”

Savage says she wants other women to know that they can be changemakers in their community, too. “You need to just really search your soul, search your heart, know where your passion is, and then you just give it 110%,” she said. “Make it work. Just go after it.”